Abstract

The paraxial Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (pWKB) approximation, also called beam tracing method, has been employed in order to study the propagation of lower hybrid waves in a tokamak plasma. Analogous to the well-know ray tracing method, this approach reduces Maxwell’sequations to a set of ordinary differential equations, while, in addition, retains the effects of the finite beam cross-section, and, thus, the effects of diffraction. A new code, LHBEAM (lower hybrid BEAM tracing), is presented, which solves the pWKB equations in tokamak geometry for arbitrary launching conditions and for analytic and experimental plasma equilibria. In addition, LHBEAM includes linear electron Landau damping for the evaluation of the absorbed power density and the reconstruction of the waveelectric field in both the physical and Fourier space. Illustrative LHBEAM calculations are presented along with a comparison with the ray tracing code GENRAY and the full wave solver TORIC-LH.

Received 29 June 2012Accepted 31 July 2012Published online 17 August 2012

Acknowledgments:

The many insightful discussions with M. Bornatici, R. Bilato, and M. Brambilla are gratefully acknowledged. This research is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FC02-99ER54512.